By and by--after the clock in the Metropolitan tower had struck the hour of eleven--Helen heard the rustle and step outside her door which she had heard in the corridor downstairs. She crept to her door, after turning out her light, and opening it a crack, listened. Had somebody gone downstairs? Was that a rustling dress in the corridor down there--the ghost walk? Did she hear again the "step--put; step--put" that had puzzled her already? She did not like to go out into the hall and, perhaps, meet one of the servants. So, after a time, she went back to her book. But the incident had given her a distaste for reading. She kept listening for the return of the ghostly step. So she undressed and went to bed. Long afterward (or so it seemed to her, for she had been asleep and slept soundly) she was aroused again by the "step--put; step--put" past her door. Half asleep as she was, she jumped up and ran to the door. When she opened it, it seemed as though the sound was far down the main corridor--and she thought she could see the entire length of that passage. At least, there was a great window at the far end, and the moonlight looked ghostily in. No shadow crossed this band of light, and yet the rustle and step continued after she reached her door and opened it. Then---- Was that a door closed softly in the distance? She could not be sure. After a minute or two one thing she _was_ sure of, however; she was getting cold here in the draught, so she scurried back to bed, covered her ears, and went to sleep again. Helen got up the next morning with one well-defined determination. She would put into practice her uncle's suggestion. She would buy one of the cheap but showy dresses which shopgirls and minor clerks had to buy to keep up appearances. It was a very serious trouble to Helen that she was not to buy and disport herself in pretty frocks and hats. The desire to dress prettily and tastefully is born in most girls--just as surely as is the desire to breathe. And Helen was no exception. She was obstinate, however, and could keep to her purpose. Let the Starkweathers think she was poor. Let them continue to think so until her play was all over and she was ready to go home again. Her experience in the great city had told Helen already that she could never be happy there. She longed for the ranch, and for the Rose pony--even for Big Hen Billings and Sing and the rag-head, Jo-Rab, and Manuel and Jose, and all the good-hearted, honest "punchers" who loved her and who would no more have hurt her feelings than they would have made an infant cry. She longed to have somebody call her "Snuggy" and to smile upon her in good-fellowship. As she walked the streets nobody appeared to heed her. If they did, their expression of countenance merely showed curiosity, or a scorn of her clothes.